All right, I need to confess something here: my connection to this month’s Book of Note goes beyond simply reading it. I have had the great privilege of getting to know author Mary Perdue and her work since our initial conversation in 2019. I read an early draft of the manuscript so I got to know both Mary and Landaluce in a way that most readers do not get to. I realize that might make anyone reading this post say, “Well, of course, you enjoyed this and recommend it.”

While that is true, let me say that, as a lifelong reader and writer with years of experience behind me, Landaluce: the Story of Seattle Slew’s First Champion would still earn my deep respect and enthusiasm with or without that early access. This story has a heart that beats with a passion and reverence that belongs not just to the woman who wrote it, but also to those who bore witness to this story. It is that awe and veneration of this tragic filly that makes Landaluce a book that I would recommend to anyone who loves this sport, its history, and the animals at the center of it.

A Story to Experience

The filly Landaluce is a product of the first crop from Triple Crown winner Seattle Slew. Before he produced Swale, Slew o’ Gold, and A.P. Indy, the dark brown colt entered his stud career with nine horses of doubt behind him. None of the other Triple Crown winners to that point — save for perhaps Count Fleet — had been significant stallions and the prospect that Slew would reproduce himself was in doubt. Couple that with a pedigree that saw him rejected by Keeneland as a yearling up for sale and one understands why Spendthrift Farm’s investment in the champion might have appeared risky at first. Landaluce was the first of a tidal wave of horses that Slew would produce.

If you are reading this and her name seems familiar to you, it is for good reason: she was one of D. Wayne Lukas’s earliest champions. Yet you might be grasping for why she is significant, why you are unable to place her within your own internal pantheon of horses you’ve seen race, and there may be a good reason why: she raced only five times forty years ago. Yet, yet, in that handful of races, this filly’s impact on the sport resonates beyond the brevity of her time on the racetrack.

And that is what is at the center of Perdue’s story. Though her career was brief, though her life was tragically cut short, Landaluce was beloved in a way that few horses ever are. Much like Secretariat, Man o’ War, Barbaro, Zenyatta, whatever horse occupies a perch within your soul, Landaluce resonates the same way for the lucky ones who got to watch her and follow her in 1982. At a time when ESPN was just finding its feet and fans had fewer resources for their racing news, what she did on the racetrack left an indelible mark on that moment in the sport and on Mary Perdue. How lucky for us that happened, because it enabled her to capture lightning in a bottle, turning one fan’s joy into an unforgettable story.

A Filly to Remember

You might think that writing a whole book on a horse whose career spanned only five races would put the author at a significant disadvantage, but, for a writer like Perdue, that frees her to do something most do not get to do: luxuriate in context. Rather than a breathless recounting of circumstance and pedigree, the book is able to explore the steps that brought the world Landaluce. Relationships are shared. The high-stakes decisions that go into building a successful stable, sire, or starter are laid bare for readers to understand what goes on behind the scenes. Sure, we get to know names like Lukas, Combs, and more, but beyond that, we get to appreciate all that went into building Landaluce’s legend.

This space to reflect also gives the reader more time to fall in love with the filly and to marvel at her precocious excellence. That also makes her end all the more heartbreaking. As the book draws to its inevitable conclusion, we are left with a strong sense of what might have been and a deep understanding of why Lukas never let another horse break his heart in the way that Landaluce did. In a career as accomplished as his, with multiple wins in each of the Triple Crown classics and a spot in the National Museum of Racing and Hall of Fame, for any horse to affect him that way speaks to her quality and the tremendous loss experienced by those who loved her.

Indeed, I shed a tear or two as Perdue recounts those final days and the grief that followed. Yet those tears were shed for a filly that I grew to love through Perdue’s words, one who became more and more real and tangible as the book goes on. Though we know how what happens next, readers will fall into Landaluce’s moment and relish putting themselves trackside as she races. I promise the thrills are worth the tears.

I hope you will pick up Landaluce: the Story of Seattle Slew’s First Champion and allow the bay filly with the smudge of white in the center of her lovely forehead to burrow her way into your heart too. Pick it up at your favorite bookseller or through your favorite online bookstore.